Minerva's Box
by UnicornPammy
Summary: Can Peter and his father save a young Healer from the streets...before she is swallowed whole? Ooo, we shall see...:þ
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Kung Fu or Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, or any of the characters or anything like that. Except Minerva. She's mine. I saw her first, she belongs to me!   
  
Feedback is always welcome. : ) Send me your praises and flames. I accept them all. Except maybe death threats. I just laugh at those.  
  
Author's note: This story is an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a while now like that little ball from the pong game.  
  
Disclaimer the 2nd: I don't own Pong either.  
  
Anywho, enjoy. It's been fun for me so far.  
  
Kung Fu: The Legend Continues  
Minerva's Box  
By Pami  
  
Prologue  
  
I met Peter Caine for the first time the night of the raid. I was living with a small gang of street thugs, and apparently one of them had witnessed a recent murder. They needed him to put their suspect away for a very long time. But I didn't know that.  
  
I was awakened by a loud slam. It was dark, and I was disoriented. Where had   
the noise come from? Why was it so dark? Of course, there were no windows in the old factory we'd taken as a tentative sanctuary. I looked down from my loft to see cops pouring through the wooden double doors into the burned out old building. There were shouts and staccato footfalls as the cops swarmed, flashlights and guns blazing, onto a group of kids who'd been too impatient to find some dark corner to get high in. They sat in a messy group almost immediately inside the door.   
  
My roost was an old office, perhaps the overseer's God-like perch. But now there were no walls save the one in the back, sporting a door that I'd shoved an old crate against just to be sure no one could get in from that way. It led to another part of the factory, I'm sure, but I was too tired in those early morning hours when I'd crawled up here to sleep to check it out.  
  
Yelling, clomping, stampeding cops continued to surge through the fairly wide   
doorway, parting smoothly around the crowd of officers and junkies like water around any obstacle. Down among them, it may have seemed like chaos to the kids, but from above I watched their efficiency, their objective forcefulness, their clockwork operation that appealed to my organized mind as much as the invasion burned in my chest as rage.  
  
"We've got to run, Min," came a small voice beside me. It came from the little   
girl snuggled into my side beneath layers of ratty blankets. I'd found her wandering the streets alone a couple months ago, unable to remember her mother, her father, her own name. I took her in, cared for her. Helped heal the scrapes and bruises she couldn't remember getting. She now clung to me wherever I went, didn't matter what I was doing. I could barely use the crapper without her hanging on my arm. I called her "Zee," as in chimpanzee, because she reminded me of a clingy little monkey. Soon she was my little sister in everything but law and blood, but sometimes those two factors counted the   
least. I judged her age to be about 8 years or so, but she was smart, and she was quick.  
  
"Min, they have guns! Are they gonna shoot us? We gotta run now, Min." She   
was standing, pulling on my arm, but I had to keep watching. I had to see if anyone was harmed. We'd been through a couple raids before, but nothing of this magnitude, and it was my job to make sure everyone was ok.   
  
I am a Healer.   
  
I don't mean like a medic or anything like that. I Heal people using some strange energy inside me. I'm a Healer and an Empath, and it's not very easy being either, much less both.  
  
Using my empathy, I was screening the crowd below, trying to determine what   
could happen next. Now, most people confuse empathy with telepathy. I can't read thoughts, but I can read emotions, and emotions often reveal intent.  
  
Emotions roiled violently among those below me. Terror, rage, determination,   
they sounded in my mind like the screams and angry shouts that pulsed in my ears. But I refused to close off either my mind or my ears. How could I Heal anyone if I were deaf to their cries for help?  
  
"One of em's lookin' at us," Zee breathed in my ear. I saw him, one pale face   
looking up from far below. I could barely make out features, but I could feel eyes burning into me.  
  
"Min, please, please, we gotta run," my little charge whimpered. She was so   
afraid...but my job...  
  
He started up the stairs. It surprised me; I couldn't tell you why. I hadn't thought he could really see me. The loft was shrouded in shadow, and I'd dressed both myself and Zee in dark clothing. Then a niggling thought wormed into my mind...what if he felt me? Felt my presence, my passage. I had heard of other Sensitives, but I'd never met one. Could this officer possibly be one?  
  
Zee's insistent cries forced my decision. For her sake, we would run. The cop   
was halfway up to the loft, being slowed by many landings. It was time to go. I grabbed Zee's small hand and went through the door at the back. We came upon another loft, and were immediately faced with two staircases, one leading up to the next floor, and the other leading down to the floor below. I made quick calculations based upon my knowledge of the building's exterior and what I now knew, and remembered there was an exit on the building's south wall, which could be gotten to by those down leading stairs. I also thought of what would happen if we were caught together. We'd be separated, probably sent to foster homes, and I'm sure I'd go to Juvie first. If we were going to be separated, then it would be on my terms. She would not be taken.  
  
"Look, little chimp. We gotta be apart for a bit." Her eyes widened and a protest rose to her lips, but I hurried on. "Listen, listen. I want you to go down those steps, and out the door. And be as quiet as you can. Go to the subway station at Main and East 3rd, and wait for me in the girl's room. I'll be there soon, okay?" She nodded, a bit forlornly, but I could see she was ready to do it. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, then gently shoved her toward the stairs. "Go!"  
  
She did. I watched until she reached the second landing down, then tore my eyes   
away and made myself start up the other staircase. I was only up to the first landing when the door banged open and the cop charged through. He held his gun different from most cops I'd seen. They usually double-gripped their weapons, with the barrel pointed low; but this one held his high, single-grip. Zee made a sound on the stairs; she hadn't yet reached the bottom. The cop lowered quickly into a crouch, one arm behind him, bent up at the elbow, gun extended straight in front of him. Almost as if he were...fencing?  
  
The movement itself was instantaneous, flowing and beautiful to watch; but I   
couldn't just stand there and look at him...he was already moving toward the railing, peering down, searching for the source of the noise. I remembered my plan, to make as much noise as I could to draw him away from Zee, and started clomping up the stairs. I stopped at the second landing and glanced down to see if he was following. Clanging footsteps that shook the rickety staircase were my answer, and I continued running upward as fast as I could. A female voice calling, "Peter!" followed him even as he followed me.  
  
"Wait for me down there, Jody," he called back.  
  
I could hear his breathing start to become ragged as I hit the sixth landing, him only a few steps behind me. But he was keeping pace, even after hustling up all those steps to the loft. I remember thinking that of course I would get the only fit cop in Sloanville after me.  
  
A sudden surge of adrenaline forced my legs faster, and I pulled ahead. I didn't exactly know how high the stairs went; we'd only occupied this building for a few days, and I had not been among the scouting party who had gone ahead to check the place out. I didn't know any of the floors above mine well enough to duck off onto one of them and try to hide. But I had been on the roof, so I hoped and prayed as I ran that this one went all the way up. If I could reach the roof, I could probably find a way down.  
  
Two more floors, and I was huffing and puffing myself. My leg muscles felt like   
tenderized meat, all wobbly and Jell-Oey. But I continued going up at full speed.  
  
I rounded the next landing, and saw a door at the top of the stairs. I felt a mixture of relief and anxiety flood through me. It could lead me to the roof...or into a dead-end. There was no choice, however. I could not turn back.  
  
I shouldered the door open, hitting it so hard it slammed into the concrete wall. I hesitated only a second as early evening air washed over me before rushing to hide behind an old crumbling chimney, one of many adorning the rooftop.  
  
Cold, foggy air surrounded me, and it didn't take long before the chill seeped   
through the layers of clothing I wore, and into my bones. Little shivers soon overtook me, and I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering.  
  
The cop wasn't far behind me, of course, and in less than a minute he was blasting through the doorway as well. Again, that metal-against-concrete sound as the door slammed into the little bunker around it.  
  
"Police!" he called. "Come out where I can see you!"  
  
Stupid, I thought. Anyone could pinpoint his location just by listening to his   
voice. A good way for a cop to get dead real fast. I peeked around the edge of my redbrick chimney to see what he was doing, where he had his attention focused.   
  
He wasn't by the door.  
  
Damn it.  
  
I looked around a bit more, but I still couldn't see him.  
  
Shit. Where the hell was he?  
  
I knew then that this man was more than just a dumb cop. A lot more. The   
feeling I'd had about him before, that he was possibly a Sensitive, grew stronger, along with my apprehension. Where the hell was he?  
  
A second before the hammer cocked, I felt his presence behind me, a mixture of   
body heat and electricity. Apparently, he saw me flinch before he pulled the hammer back, because he yelled, "Freeze!" a bit too loud for our proximity. I realized then that I frightened him, at least a little. If he was Sensitive, he would be able to feel my power, standing so close.  
  
I could feel his now that I was concentrating on him. He didn't have much, but   
what was there had certainly not been neglected. I chuckled dryly to myself. Finally, a guy in touch with his Sensitive side. But there was also an emptinessinside him, along with a wildness that belonged on the street, not inside a cop. He also had an intensity, one that wouldn't let him give up before he had what he wanted.  
  
"Put your hands up," he ordered.  
  
I didn't move. I'd been given this treatment before, certainly. I hadn't liked it before, and I didn't like it now.  
  
"You just told me to freeze." Yeah, I know, an over-used line, but I was pissed. People thought they could just bust into your house, chase you up to the roof and then order you around. Nope, wasn't happening. At least not with me.  
  
"Yeah, well now I'm telling you to put your hands up. Slowly."  
  
Still I didn't move, just stood there, head held high. I stared out at the city, at ugly buildings bathed in the orange gold of the setting sun. Noises usually associated with huge urban areas were there, invading upward toward the sky. The familiar realization that I hated the city ached in my chest like an old bruise that refused to heal.  
  
I closed my eyes and opened my Senses, trying to read him. I even prodded at   
him, wondering just how Sensitive he was.  
  
Enough to feel that, apparently, for in the next moment I found myself shoved up   
against the rough brick of the chimney. Air whooshed from my lungs, and I found   
difficulty inviting it back in. While I gasped against the chimney, the cop grabbed one of my wrists and clamped a cold metal bracelet around it. He did the same to the other, and suddenly did nothing at all.   
  
I could feel him staring down at my hands. The too-short sleeves of my jacket   
were pulled halfway up my forearms.  
  
"Where did you get these?" he asked, his voice an odd mixture of whispering   
disbelief and righteous outrage.  
  
I deliberately misunderstood. "You slapped 'em on me, Deputy Dawg. You tell   
me," I said in my most desultory voice.  
  
His fingers clamped around my right wrist, and he held my arm in place while he   
tried to turn me around. Tried to show me my own tattoo while I was still handcuffed.  
  
"Smart-ass, tell me where you got these!" he yelled.  
  
"Ouch, motherfucker, let me go!" I yelled back.   
  
Surprise registered in his deep, dark eyes. Asian eyes in a Western face. I never knew whether he was surprised because I was a girl...or because my friend Leeto had just slid three inches of stainless steel into his left lung.  
  
His breathing started to take on a gurgling quality. "Shit, Leeto," I said   
eloquently as the cop tried to spin on my friend, tried to draw his gun again and point it in Leeto's direction. I kicked the weapon out of his hand. I didn't need two injured guys to deal with. Leeto took the opportunity to stab the cop again, now that he was weaponless.  
  
"Fuck. Quit it, Leeto!" I said, watching the cop try unsuccessfully to deflect the snake-like strike. Now with two holes in his chest cavity, he was gasping hard for air, clutching at his chest with one hand. Despite my own better judgment, I opened a mental channel between us. I am a Healer, after all, but I can't Heal shit without a connection. It would be kinda like trying to talk to someone over the phone without a phone-line.  
  
"Shit, Minerva, he was all up on you. I don't let nobody hurt my own." Leeto   
sounded indignant, as if he'd just offered me a precious gift, and I had then proceeded to smack it out of his hand in disgust. Yeah, a dead cop. Thanks, man.  
  
"Shut up and get me out of these. Get his cuff keys." Leeto searched the cop,   
who tried weakly to fight him off, but found he should concentrate more on breathing. He sagged against another chimney, not more than three feet from the one I'd chosen. Then he slid down it, the cloth of his jacket snagging on the rough brick.   
  
Leeto had the keys in his hands, and moved quickly to free me. "Come on, let's   
get out of here."  
  
I looked him square in the eye. "I can't. You know I can't."  
  
"Come on, Min, he's a motherfuckin' pig. Why do anything for him?"  
  
I knelt in front of the gasping man. His forehead was clammy, and blood seeped   
through the dark tee shirt he wore beneath the black cop jacket. "Father," he breathed.  
  
That was new to me. Most men cried for their mommies when they were injured,   
perhaps dying.  
  
I stared into his eyes, eyes that no longer saw me or anything else of the scenery. Shit, he was going fast. Leeto certainly knew where to stick somebody.   
  
"Listen to me," I said, though my lips did not move. The words were sent directly to his mind. Well, not exactly words. I sent him a feeling, an idea, my desire to have him pay attention to me. "I'm going to fix you, but I need your help." I probed at his pain center, but it was completely shut off from me. I needed to access his pain, to tell where it hurt so I could determine more accurately what needed fixing.  
  
"Open up to me," I coaxed, feeling a bit like a young kid trying to seduce his date on prom night. Come on, baby, I thought you loved me. Let me feel your pain. I swear it's not gonna hurt. Baby, c'mon.  
  
He still wouldn't let me in.   
  
"Listen, you stupid jerk. You're dying. Let me in, or I'll do it myself. I can, and I assure you I will. But I don't think you'll like it if I do."  
  
It was true. I could force open his pain center, but that could add anxiety to his wounded state. It certainly wouldn't make my job easier, but I'd do it if I had to.  
  
My job...  
  
My job was also to protect Zee. Shit, had she made it to the subway station? I   
hoped so. But I couldn't think about her now. I forced my thoughts back to the dying officer in front of me.  
  
"Open," I whispered in his mind, prodding gently at his shielded pain. I figured the harder I pushed, the more he'd push back. Just like the right touch can get a prude to spread her legs, I opened him with a simple projection: my own desire to understand his pain.  
  
Holy Shit.  
  
Images inundated me, flooded me with pain of all kinds. From the dull persistent ache of his mother's death, to the raw agony of his father's abandonment. Not to mention those lonely years at the orphanage, and the rage buried so deep inside him it would always be a part of him. I saw it all and felt it all, everything but what I needed to feel.  
  
His emotional pain was overwhelming. I wondered if he even felt the wounds in   
his chest.  
  
I used a little trick I'd learned while dealing with children, women, and men who had experienced devastating emotional agony at one point in their lives. Since I had taken his pain upon myself, the trick was to block it as if it were my own. Then the physical hurt could be felt.  
  
I gasped, clutching an arm around my ribs. As I tried to draw breath, it felt like I was breathing water. Of course, he had blood in his lungs. Still staring into his sightless eyes, I cupped his face in my hands. Skin-to-skin contact helped my power to work all the better. And then, with force of will and my Healing gift, I convinced his lung tissue, flesh, and muscle to mend; the blood in his chest cavity to simply absorb back into his veins. And since my endurance was nearing its limit, I encouraged him to cough up what was in his lungs.  
  
Bright red splattered on the grey surface of the rooftop. The cop was on his hands and knees, coughing and hacking. Red smeared around his moth, giving him a gruesome appearance. Finally, he stopped, and would have pitched face-first into his own blood if I hadn't caught him, and helped him to lay over one side. He was breathing heavily, as if he'd just run a marathon. I suspected he was glad just to be able to breathe right again. I sat against my chimney and just watched him. In truth, I was too weak to want to do anything else.  
  
"You are one lucky bastard," I said after a moment or two. "If I hadn't been   
here-"  
  
"If you hadn't been here, I wouldn't have run up those stairs after you." His voice was hoarse from all the coughing.  
  
"Hey, nobody invited you in."  
  
He struggled into a sitting position, leaning back against his chimney, facing me. We sat together in the falling dusk, both trying to reclaim our strength. It was a silent truce.   
  
I hadn't noticed before, but Leeto was gone.  
  
"Why did he stab me?" the cop asked. "Why didn't he just shoot me?"  
  
I shrugged. "Probably because I was too close. Like he said, nobody hurts his   
own. Not even himself."  
  
He laughed, a note of derision in his voice. "Street thug ethics."  
  
"Those ethics saved your fucking life. I think you should be a bit more grateful, Officer. I could have just left you to die."  
  
"It's 'Detective.' And why didn't you? I didn't invite you to help me."  
  
"I saved you, fucker. I didn't just help."  
  
"Hey, whether you saved me or not, it's still an offense to verbally abuse a police officer."  
  
He was laughing at me. I could see it in his dark Asian eyes.  
  
"Yeah, well...you're a 'Detective,'" I said, doing air quotations with my fingers.   
"You don't count."  
  
Oh, this felt strange. This was very strange. I was trading jibes with a cop. I had to get out of here. But first, a distraction. What could I-  
  
"Peter?"  
  
Bingo. Lady cop to the rescue.  
  
"Good-bye, Detective Peter."  
  
He'd been looking at the door, at the woman coming up on the roof. Then his   
head jerked back toward me when I spoke. But to him, I wasn't there anymore. I had slipped below his plane of consciousness. Another trick of Empathy. I was still there, but he couldn't see me. It was kinda like he'd just awakened from sleepwalking, and I was the dream. Normally, I could only keep this up for a few minutes, though, and since I'd just Healed him, that time was drastically reduced.  
  
I stood and searched for a fire escape, something that would get me down to the   
street.  
  
"Peter? Dammit, where are you!"  
  
"Over here, Jody." His voice sounded tired.  
  
I saw two thin railings of metal side-by-side, curving up and over the lip of the roof. Once again, bingo.  
  
"My God! Oh, my God, Peter, is this your blood?"  
  
I'm fine, I'm fine. Did you see-,"  
  
"We've got to get the paramedics up here!"  
  
I started down the ladder. I got halfway when I had to let my little sub-conscious trick wear off, or I wouldn't have strength enough to climb down. I'd fall instead.  
  
The ladder led down into an alley. As soon as I reached the bottom, I trotted out to the street and melted into the crowds of pedestrians, on my way to the subway station at Main and East 3rd.  
  
I was sixteen at the time. I wouldn't see Peter again for another four years.  



	2. Minerva's Box II: Peter

I stared down at my bare chest, still seeing the bright red blood that had covered it when I'd arrived here at the emergency room. All that was left to remind me of it were a small horizontal scar just below my left nipple, and another on my back in about the same spot, of the exact same size. Just a few hours before, they had been life-threatening wounds.  
  
Before the girl healed me.  
  
"What happened up there, Peter?" Jody asked, looking at me with fading panic still written on her features.  
  
I can remember the way it felt. Dying. There was pain at first, sharp and burning as the small stainless steel blade invaded my chest cavity. But that faded fast beneath the panic of knowing I was going to drown in my own blood. I spun, and there stood our witness, a young African-American male teenager, wielding a small pocket-knife. Small, but long enough to kill. I didn't even feel the second strike, but I had seen it coming. A flash of late-afternoon sunlight on metal. It arced toward me, slowly. Even though time seemed to crawl, I couldn't deflect it. But my feeble block had been sheer gut-reaction. No thought. Just survival instinct kicking in even after I knew I was lost.  
  
I was floating, the boy forgotten. Riding a crimson wave as it crashed over my head. Then that alien presence inside my mind. Intruding deftly, completely undermining my own defenses. Pop had taught me, along with Kung Fu, how to create a simple wall around my mind. Spirit-world mumbo-jumbo, but I did the meditating exercises to appease him. I had almost forgotten it was there. After a while, it became something I didn't even think about. But damned if I didn't notice when it was gone. And it was GONE. It had simply melted in her presence.  
  
And she was there, inside my head. She wanted me to listen to her. I don't know how I knew that. It was like she made me know it. I also knew ears would be useless for the kind of listening she wanted me to do. Heal. She was going to heal me.  
  
Yes, please.  
  
But it won't work, because I'm dying.  
  
I almost felt like apologizing to her, because I wouldn't be able to oblige her request that I live.  
  
She needed me to show her where it hurt. Goddammit, it hurt all over. Shall I start with the first time I broke my arm when I was six years old and climbing up to Buddha's head out in the Temple Garden? Then how one of the boys startled me, and I fell. Crunch. Yeah, that hurt.  
  
Or how about when I was covered in spiders, venom running through my veins, so close to death that Ping Hai almost couldn't bring me back? That hadn't really hurt. It was just going to sleep. Kinda like this time.  
  
Where does it hurt? You can't heal me, kid. Butt out. Quit trying.  
  
Then she yelled at me. Well, more like I could feel the anger radiating out from her. The frustration. Her disgust at my stupidity. The panic lying beneath it all. I was afraid, because it felt almost like she was going to tear me open and pick through all my hurts until she found the one that she needed.  
  
My wounds were mine. She couldn't have them.  
  
* I want to understand. *  
  
I swear I heard those words. Before she had sent merely a slew of emotions, desires, feelings. But words. . . I HEARD those words. AND the emotions underneath them. She wanted it so bad.  
  
So I gave it to her. I gave her my memories. My hurts, my wounds, from the scrapes to the broken bones. Why don't I have a mother? Why do they taunt us like that? No, my father can't be dead! I don't want to stay here.. I'm alone.  
  
I'm afraid.  
  
Get the fuck out of my way.  
  
And then she did something. She hid them away. Much better than I had ever been able to do. She took the open, festering sores and she bandaged them. She smeared a salve of forgetfulness over them; she pushed them down and away, and I remembered once again that I was dying.  
  
Then she healed me.  
  
It's difficult to describe. Warmth spiraling through me, settling around my heart. The flow of life that I could feel draining from me slowed.then stopped. I breathed, I choked. I coughed up at least a gallon of blood it seemed, but I could breathe when it was done.  
  
I could breathe.  
  
I can't remember what we talked about when she was done. In the fading light she looked incredibly tired, and much older than her years. Her body said she was a teenager, but her eyes told a much different story. And her wrists told me she was Shaolin. They were tattoos, not brands, but there was no mistaking them. A dragon. A tiger. Even if she didn't know it, she was Shaolin.  
  
And then she disappeared. Jody's voice caught my attention, and I glanced away from her, the movement causing me a little pain. But pain meant I was still alive. I glanced back, and no little street punk with short, choppy black hair and shrewd green eyes. Mismatched clothing that made her seem like nobody important, invisible in a crowd. She disappeared from an abandoned rooftop. Where the hell did she go?  
  
Then there was Jody, frightened, her face so white, you would have thought it was * her * blood all over the concrete. And she was calling paramedics up to the rooftop, screaming * 'Officer down!' * into her walkie-talkie, bending over me, trying to find the wound and stop the blood- flow. She would have been too late. I would have died before she even made it up the many flights of stairs. My eyes were continually scanning the roof, trying to find the kid with the disappearing act Houdini would have envied. This was definitely something I would have to discuss with my father.  
  
The medics arrived, and despite my own objections, I was whisked away to the hospital. And here I sat in the ER on a bustling Saturday evening, contemplating two small scars that had almost ended my life. And the girl who helped me after I'd chased her, weapon drawn, up what had felt like a thousand steps. After I'd shoved her up against a wall, nearly wrenched her arm out of its socket.  
  
I owed her.  
  
Big time.  
  
* * * * *  
  
My father's Kung Fu studio wrapped its peace around me as I entered. I always felt like I disturbed the energies in here with my own chaotic ch'i, the one my father tried so hard to tame. I was a Picasso portrait moving through a pastoral landscape.  
  
"Pop!" I called, moving through the empty dojo, heading upstairs. The simple surroundings reflected my father's soul. Ordered, austere, and yet at the same time warm and compassionate. The walls were a neutral off- white, a shade that invited untidy colors like a venus fly trap invited flies. Yes, they would be welcome, but quickly swallowed whole.  
  
He sat on a small straw mat in the middle of the room, his legs folded before him, hands limply resting on his knees. His head was tilted back slightly, and his eyes were closed. An almost sub-sonic hum registered faintly on my eardrums. It came from him. Incense smoldered in a small urn on the floor in front of him. He was the solemn Buddha in the Garden of Tranquility. I hated to disturb him.  
  
"Pop."  
  
The hum stopped, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, he inhaled. His eyelids slid open, and he pinned me with his gaze. His eyes didn't merely search, they pierced.  
  
"You should be resting," he said.  
  
I ignored his first comment, ignoring as well the lingering fatigue that clung to my muscles. "Can women be Shaolin?" I rushed in, trying to distract him from his quiet assessment of my health. No doubt he got his information from my aura, or the number and position of lintballs on my over-washed T-shirt. I don't know how he knew what had happened, but somehow I knew he had the gist of it.  
  
"Anyone with patience and determination can-"  
  
"No, I mean. . . can someone just be Shaolin? Is it something you have to attain, or can you just be. . . born with. . .the abilities of. . . ." I didn't even know what I was trying to ask, but apparently he did.  
  
"You have met someone with strange powers, and this has led you believe that she is inherently Shaolin."  
  
"Well, yes and no. Yes, I met someone with strange powers, but that didn't lead me to believe she was Shaolin." I hesitated, don't know why. "The tattoos of a tiger and a dragon on her wrists led me to believe she was Shaolin."  
  
He shrugged and began to unfold himself from his sitting position. He gracefully got to his feet, his plain clothing falling perfectly into place without a wrinkle. "Anyone can get tattoos, my son. And anyone can learn a charlatan's trick."  
  
I shook my head. "No, no, this wasn't a trick." I jammed one hand into my pocket, the other through my hair. "I saw her heal someone. . . someone who would've died if she hadn't helped them."  
  
He regarded me, his eyes once again seeing through me. "Whom did she heal?"  
  
He knew. Dammit, I knew he knew.  
  
"Me."  
  
"I see." He folded his hands into the opposite sleeves of his tunic and began to slowly circle the room. "So this, this woman with Shaolin tattoos, she healed you. Would you like me to help you find her so you can arrest her?"  
  
"No, I'm not going to arrest her." I was getting frustrated. "And it was more than that." I yanked open my jacket, and pulled up my shirt to show the scars: one on my chest, one on my back. "Yesterday evening, I was dying. From these." He didn't turn around. "And she saved me."  
  
"I know. I could sense it."  
  
For some reason, this made me angry. "What, me dying, or her saving me?"  
  
"Both. You are lucky, Peter. I would not have been able to reach you in time." He turned then, both hands behind his back. "I, too, am indebted to her."  
  
Well, at least the games were over, it seemed. "Then, will you help me find her?"  
  
He strode over to where I stood in the doorway and placed his hand on my shoulder. "No. I believe she will come. . . to us." Then he smiled, patted my cloth-covered shoulder, and walked past me. 


	3. Minerva's Box III: Peter

In frustration, I left the dojo. Somehow I knew I wouldn't get a straight answer from him. My hands were jammed down into my pockets as I fought against the wind just to reach my car, parked a block down from the Kung Fu studio. It was cold that night, and clouds were beginning to blot out the stars. If it didn't rain tonight, the sky would certainly open up tomorrow morning. A small part of me was worried about the girl from the rooftop. I'd never actually lived on the streets, but I knew lots of people who had. I knew this girl had to be tough to make it as long as she had, and she acted as if she'd been on the streets most of her life. If so, a few little raindrops wouldn't hurt her.  
  
That didn't stop me from worrying, though.  
  
And if my father was right, it wouldn't do any good for me to seek her out. According to him, she'd find us. I hate waiting.  
  
One thing I knew I could do, though, was I could enter her description into the computer, see if any criminal record popped up. Most of these kids out here have passed through the cop shop at least once in their lives. The odds were, I'd find something.  
  
And if I couldn't, Kermit damn sure could. I slid into the front seat of my Stealth, feeling a little less helpless about this case than I had when I left the emergency room. I guided the car through busy city streets, on my way home. I had a big day tomorrow.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"All right," Kermit said, gazing at his computer screen through green tinted shades. I leaned on a corner of his desk, peering at the monitor as he grilled me on the girl's appearance. "Sex?"  
  
"Female."  
  
"Age?"  
  
"Mid-teens, I'd say sixteen or seventeen."  
  
"Race?"  
  
"Caucasian."  
  
"Height? Weight?"  
  
"I'd say. . . " I paused, trying to remember how tall she'd been. "At least five and a half feet. Yeah, five-five, five-six. And she was thin, probably just over a hundred pounds."  
  
Kermit typed in the specs with quick, efficient strokes. "Facial features. Hair, eyes, any distinguishing marks?"  
  
It was a little difficult to call up her image in my mind. "Hair dark brown, almost black. Short, uneven cut. She almost looked like a boy. Her eyes are. . ." I realized that I could barely remember the color, even though I'd known last night. When I tried to concentrate on it, all I could see was the fire of determination and a strong will. But they weren't dark, bottomless pools. . . the faint glint of hue I'd seen reminded me somewhat of a tranquil ocean, clear tide pools surrounded by glistening green seaweed.  
  
"Green. Her eyes are green."  
  
"Distinguishing marks?"  
  
None on her face. In fact, she was almost forgettable. But for the strength I had sensed within her and that had shone from her eyes, she could have been just like any other teenage girl. But her forearms. . . .  
  
"Two tattoos, both on her lower arms. One dragon, one tiger."  
  
Kermit paused mid-keystroke. I could tell from his posture that he was watching me from the corners of his eyes, even if I couldn't see them behind the sunglasses. He knew the reference, knew me and Pop well enough to understand what those tattoos meant.  
  
Shaolin.  
  
"She took the brands?" he asked quietly, and I knew that he was looking at the computer screen again.  
  
"No," I shook my head. "They were tattoos. Nothing official. She could have gotten them from anywhere."  
  
"Alright. What was she wearing?"  
  
I couldn't answer. I didn't know. Obviously, she had chosen her garb to blend in, to slide between the cracks and disappear. I was beginning to understand just how good she was at that.  
  
"Peter?"  
  
"I didn't get a good look at her," I said, half-angry with myself for not paying more attention. "It was almost dark. I couldn't tell."  
  
"Mm-hmm." I almost felt his curiosity pique at the terseness of my voice. "So, were you planning on telling me why you're after this girl? Did she steal your wallet? Your favorite pocket watch? Perhaps your innocent heart?"  
  
His sarcastic jab only served to piss me off even more. I turned and stalked out of his office. "Don't worry about it," I tossed over my shoulder. "Just tell me what you find."  
  
"Aye, aye, cap'n," I heard him mutter before I was completely out of earshot.  
  
I made my way to my desk, dropping hard into the uncomfortable office chair. I glared at my own inferior computer, the one that had refused to divulge any information to me about the mysterious young Shaolin girl I'd run into-literally-last night. Then my attention turned to the pile of case folders scattered across my desk, begging for attention I knew I wouldn't be able to give, not until this case was solved.  
  
Where was she? What was she? I wanted to go back to my father, ask him more questions, but I knew he'd give me the same ones he had last night. No point in searching for her. . . she'd find us.  
  
Dammit, I didn't want to WAIT!  
  
"Peter," Jody said from behind me. "Captain Blaisdell wants to talk to you. About yesterday."  
  
Great.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Have a seat, Peter." I closed the door to his office and did as commanded, though a bit reluctantly. My frustration was translating itself into rebellion. Blaisdell regarded me thoughtfully from across the wide expanse of his desk. His fingers were steepled, the tips resting against his pressed lips. Finally he lowered his hands to the desk.  
  
"I hear you had a brush with death last night, son. And yet you seem remarkably healthy this morning." I heard worry in his voice, but decided to ignore it.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"I can see that. However, would you like to explain to me how you came to be covered in blood on that factory rooftop yesterday evening? And how your jacket had two knife holes in it, both caked with blood, yet here you sit before me, as if all you'd received was a paper cut?" His eyes were trying to cut through my wall of anger, through the bullshit. Trying to perceive the truth, something I was reluctant to give him just now.  
  
I looked at him, slouching slightly in my chair, my right ankle resting on my left knee. My right elbow was propped on the arm of the chair, and I tapped my cheekbone with my forefinger. "You wouldn't understand," I said quietly, if only to break the weighty silence.  
  
"Oh, I think I would," he said, standing up behind his desk, then proceeding to walk around it. "I think you underestimate me, Peter. You assume that since I've spent most of my life wading through the basest of human bullshit, that I can't understand what you and Kwai Chang understand." He leaned against the front of the desk, folding his arms in an aggressive stance. He glared down at me, then suddenly leaned forward and braced his hands on the arms of my chair, his face very close to mine. "I may not be a Shaolin priest, Peter," he whispered roughly, "but for thirteen years I've been your father."  
  
"Paul-"  
  
"And right now, I also happen to be your Captain, so you are going to tell me, right now, what happened last night, Detective."  
  
I tried to think of a good lie, but I knew he'd see right through it. All I had left was the bad truth.  
  
"I was dead yesterday, Paul," I said, locking my gaze with his. "I shouldn't be here in your office today."  
  
He was silent for a few beats, just looking at me, and I watched shock and worry and confusion make war over his expression. Finally he gave up trying to figure it out himself. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean yesterday evening as the sun was going down, my blood was splashed across a concrete rooftop. And this girl, this kid, saved me."  
  
"How?"  
  
"I don't know," I said, frustrated and angry. "I don't know. I tried to ask my father, but. . ." I looked away. His gaze was too probing. He wanted more answers than I could give.  
  
Paul pulled back then, giving me some space. "I see." He paused again, pressing a knuckle against his lip while he digested what I'd told him. "What happened?" he finally said. "And tell me in as much detail as you remember."  
  
I took a deep breath, gathered my thoughts. Where the hell should I start? "I went in with the SWAT team. I got there late, so I didn't have time for a Kevlar vest. . ." I told him about rushing in, and feeling that fluttering touch behind my eyes. Something telling me to look up. . . and those two frightened faces, one pale, one dark, staring down at me from within the shadows of an old abandoned office. Finding the rickety staircase that led up. . . to an empty loft. Two wooden crates hastily shoved aside, and an old rusty door. That momentary hesitation, regret that I hadn't bothered to grab my partner before rushing in. But that only stopped me for a second. Then I was bursting through, gun blazing, faced with an empty stairwell, and a choice, up or down.  
  
"I heard a bit of noise below me, and I started to go down. But then I heard something bigger start pounding up above me."  
  
"You went up?"  
  
"Yeah. . ." I described the ascent, the chase, the confrontation. And then. . . . "I turned, too slowly, to see who'd stabbed me. It was our witness, and he was pissed that I was picking on this girl. Then he stabbed me again." I stopped, remembering. "It happened so fast. It was almost like I wasn't even there, I was just watching it happen."  
  
"He stabbed you twice?" Paul seemed a bit alarmed by that.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"First in my back, just under my shoulder blade. Then here," and I indicated the spot of the second scar.  
  
"They must not have been very bad. . ."  
  
"Paul, I told you. I was dying. I couldn't breathe. My lung was filling with blood. I had two holes in my chest cavity."  
  
"Christ, Peter, how is that you're sitting before me?"  
  
I shook my head. "I don't know. She just. . . healed me. She touched me. I heard her voice in my head."  
  
Paul stared at me for a long time. "And what did she say?"  
  
I looked at him, not blinking. " 'Where does it hurt?'"  
  
"And then what?"  
  
"And then she healed me. She put me back together from the inside out."  
  
The look on his face told me he just couldn't accept that. "But how?"  
  
"I don't know!" I yelled, jumping up out of my chair and pacing around his office. "I don't know who she is, or where she is, or-"  
  
"What did your father say?"  
  
"Nothing," I said sarcastically. "Except that she would come to us."  
  
Paul regarded me for awhile, then nodded as if he'd come to a decision. "Well, keep me informed." He moved behind his desk, then sat down.  
  
"That's it?" I felt utterly dismissed.  
  
He looked up from the paperwork he'd been working on when I came in. "Was there anything else?"  
  
"No. No, that's it."  
  
* * * * *  
  
I left Blaisdell's office more frustrated than I had been before. Jody kind of slid a glance at me as I closed the door behind myself. She had probably been expecting something heavy (like me) to come crashing through the glass. That I was all in one piece seemed to surprise her.  
  
She stood up from her desk and walked with me as I moved toward mine. I sat down and started messing with search engines again, looking for the girl, too impatient to wait for Kermit. "Peter, you never told me," she said, her voice low and furtive. "What happened up there on the roof?"  
  
I didn't look at her. "I'm sure you can get the tape of mine and Paul's conversation from Blake."  
  
She ignored me. "I'm your partner, Peter, I need this information."  
  
I didn't answer her; instead I entered my search parameters and let the infernal machine do its thing.  
  
"Peter, you can't-"  
  
"Peter!" Kermit's voice cut through hers. I looked up to see him standing in the doorway of his Batcave. I left Jody at my desk and hurried over to Blaisdell's old war pal. He moved aside so I could enter his office. Blinds slapped lightly against the door as he closed it, and moved past me to sit in front of his computer.  
  
I leaned over his shoulder. "What have you found?" The monitor told me nothing. It was just a black screen with the words "Oh, yeah" jumping around, bouncing off the edges.  
  
Kermit slowly glanced back at me, his gaze piercing me over the top of his shades.  
  
I stared at him in confusion. "What?"  
  
His eyes moved down briefly, then back up. I glanced down. My hand was on his shoulder. I jerked it away. "Sorry." He turned back around, pushed his glasses firmly into place, and got down to business. He entered the password to get rid of the screensaver. Underneath was a face. It was young, younger than the one I'd seen on the rooftop, but it belonged to the same person.  
  
"That's her! How did you find her?"  
  
He raised an eyebrow at the incredulity in my voice. "Blake isn't the only techno-junkie who can bug a room. I entered your description into the Missing Children database. Of course I got about a million hits. BUT, I cross-referenced that with a search of several paranormal phenomena databases. She's the only one who came up."  
  
He started reading from the screen. " 'A child with amazing healing abilities, known only as Minerva, was found wandering the streets without any memory of her past. She was sent to a private facility that had operated for fifty years under the guise of a foster center, but was closed down when it was discovered that bizarre experiments were being performed on the children. From there, she was transferred into the child-welfare system. She ran away from her new foster home after only a week, and hasn't been seen since.' "  
  
I stared at the screen in amazement. All I could think was that she was probably as much of a mystery to herself as she was to me.  
  
"How old was she?" I finally said.  
  
"They couldn't tell for certain. They guessed her age to be about ten years old. Her birthday is listed as the day they found her."  
  
"Who's 'they'?" I searched the information on the screen, trying to find the answer for myself.  
  
"She was picked up by the police, and a representative of the private foster center came by to speak to her. Apparently, the social worker assigned to her case knew of the facility and ok'd her placement there."  
  
"If it's a private center, who paid for it?"  
  
"Some old rich guy donated the money for this place in 1964. Not very many children have gone through there, mostly cases very similar to your Shaolin sweetheart."  
  
I glared at him, then turned back to the screen. I tried to find the answers on the screen, but all that was there were her stats. "Where are you getting this?"  
  
Kermit turned away from the computer and pulled a thick stack of papers off the printer. "Her case file. This includes some of the information from the private facility. Much of it was destroyed when the place was shut down. They didn't want anyone to know the types of experiments they were conducting, it seems."  
  
I took the papers and began leafing through them. "What kind of experiments did they do?"  
  
"It's all in there," Kermit said, already doing something else.  
  
"Anything beyond when she ran away?"  
  
"There is nothing. According to the system, she is indefinitely MIA."  
  
I nodded, sighing. "Thanks, Kermit."  
  
"I also printed out a list of the tattoo parlors in the area that carry that design. You may want to check 'em out."  
  
"Thanks," I said, my nose already buried in the ream of information, "but I know how to do my job."  
  
"Just trying to help out."  
  
I glanced over. "How did you print all this out in the few minutes I was in Paul's office?"  
  
He stopped what he was doing and glared at me over his sunglasses.  
  
I nodded. "Right. Thanks again." I closed the door behind me on my way out. Jody was waiting for me. She looked only slightly pissed. I walked past her, but soon heard her footsteps behind me.  
  
"Peter, if you would just stand still for a second and tell me WHAT is going on-"  
  
"Sorry, Jody, I-"  
  
"-you won't get my foot up your ass."  
  
I stopped and turned around, tucking the papers under my left arm. "Look," I placed my right hand on her shoulder. She was glaring at me. A tiny twinge of guilt worked its way into my chest. She deserved at least a little bit of the truth. "I promise I'll tell you everything as soon as I have all this worked out."  
  
"Now, Peter." Her voice was as yielding as a steamroller. I shook my head.  
  
"I can't tell you anything yet because I don't have anything."  
  
"You've got these," she said, swiping at the papers with the back of her hand. They spilled out onto the floor, fluttering off in every direction.  
  
"Dammit, Jody!" I quickly knelt, gathering them up. She bent down to help me, guilt in her eyes, anger still curving her lips downward. I fumed as I pulled them all together, and she plopped her armload on top of mine.  
  
"Sorry," she mumbled.  
  
I didn't say anything, just glanced around to see if there were any more lying on the floor. There weren't any that I could see. Then I bit off a few more epithets as I looked through them. Everything was out of order.  
  
I stalked past Jody, leaving the precinct. I needed someplace private to cuss and throw things at the wall. I headed for my apartment 


End file.
